


stick a pin in it

by interstellarstrut



Category: Persona 4
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-05
Updated: 2019-11-05
Packaged: 2021-01-23 09:47:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21318163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/interstellarstrut/pseuds/interstellarstrut
Summary: kanji teaches souji how to sew and gets a bit more than he bargained for: a bro-to-bro heart-to-heart.can be read as soukan but doesn't have to be!
Relationships: Seta Souji & Tatsumi Kanji
Comments: 2
Kudos: 25





	stick a pin in it

**Author's Note:**

> writing persona 4 for the first time since playing it in like........ 2013......... rip  
also i know that they briefly mentioned magatsu izanagi in the true end but like. it was in passing so it doesn’t count and i’m not satisfied! i feel like souji probably has a whole lot of Feelings about everything and wanted to go into them a bit. hope you enjoy! :•)

Souji Seta is good at many things.

Sewing, admittedly, is not one of them.

It was a whim that he learned the basics of it. Ms. Tatsumi had been cleaning out her stash of machines to make room for new ones when he came over, and in response to his question of it, she mentioned that one could be rehomed to him. 

“It’s the least I could do, after all you’ve done around here,” she said. Then, with a laugh, “And how much you’ve come back around.”

“Thank you, but I don’t know how to use it. I wouldn’t want it to go to waste.”

Kanji, in the process of lugging one of the heavier machines to the back, stammered at him for a minute before managing, “A man should know how to sew!”

Souji didn’t question his logic; he only nodded with a hidden smile before returning to helping Ms. Tatsumi. Satisfied with the new arrangement, she shooed them off soon after, and the pair retreated to Kanji’s room. Though Kanji isn’t particularly confident in his teaching skills, Souji is a quick learner, and he was able to grasp the concepts of sewing with a machine without much trouble.

Putting those concepts to work, though, is another question. 

Souji’s straight seams are generally quite good, rarely straying from their designated allowance. If Kanji watches him while he does it, he’ll find his brow furrowed in concentration, tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth while he stares down the small grid on the machine. And while that’s almost the same stance he takes for curved seams, they always turn out funkier than anticipated.

“I’m in hell,” he deadpanned, taking a seam ripper to the green thread once again. A few stitches had looped around themselves to form a circle before returning to their swaying line — how did he even  _ manage _ that?

“C’mon, bro, it’s your first night! You’re doing way better than I did when I started.” Kanji peered over his shoulder as he picked at the threads. “We can stop here for tonight. Your eyes are probably getting tired or something.”

“Can I come back tomorrow?” He turned to look at him, and Kanji flinched back at the sudden closeness. 

“Damn, you’re serious about this, huh? Sure. I’ve gotta help Ma in the morning, but after that’s cool.”

Which is how Kanji finds himself in the situation he’s in now; his sewing machine on the lowest speed, guiding a scrap piece of fabric around a curve, with Souji watching him a little too intently for comfort. 

“There’s really not, uh, a science to it. You just gotta… Do it. Damn, that’s not helpful.” He raises the needle and presser foot so he can pass the scrap to Souji, who runs his thumb across the stitches, as if they will tell him their secrets. He knows by now that the guy takes his hobbies incredibly seriously, and to see that in front of him is equal parts endearing and nerve-wracking. What if he thinks Kanji isn’t good enough at it? It’s not his preferred crafting method, after all. He likes crocheting, knitting, things with more hand movements. The sewing machine is only busted out for the larger plushies, like the still-unstuffed frog sitting across from them on his desk. The details are almost completely stitched on, put on hold to teach Souji. He grabs it and nudges his machine back up to his preferred speed before he can get swept up in being put on the spot. 

“Try to follow that seam. Might be more helpful than following the edge,” he mumbles as he positions the frog and its blushing right cheek under the needle. He hears a hum of agreement from him and the  _ thunk _ of the presser foot as it drops into place, and the two fall quiet as they work on their respective projects. 

The frog’s face is finished by the time Kanji realizes that Souji’s machine is quiet. The seam he laid out as a guide isn’t that long; he got too in the zone to realize that Souji would’ve been done quite some time ago. Clipping loose the threads that hold the frog captive under the machine, he turns in his chair to face him. The needle is still buried at the end of the fabric, the seam at least somewhat successfully sewn. Souji’s hand hovers at the handwheel, suspended, and his other is tucked under his chin. He doesn’t seem to register that Kanji stopped.

“Uh… Senpai?”

His hesitant voice jolts him out of his reverie, and he smiles sheepishly. “I’m sorry.”

Kanji shakes his head while he finishes turning the handwheel and pulls out the fabric. “No, ‘sall good.”

“It’s better, I think,” Souji says. He holds the fabric up to the light so Kanji can see. The green thread wavers more than the initial red, but it stays relatively on course, especially compared to the stitches that were ripped out the previous day.

“Yeah, I think so, too. You’re doing a damn good job. Hang on, I’ll find something else for you.” He pushes his chair backwards to rummage through the pile of scrap fabric that has accumulated on top of his chest. While he busies himself with looking, he asks, “Something on your mind, or…?”

“Nothing to worry over.”

“Like hell it isn’t,” Kanji frowns. “I mean, don’t talk about it if you really don’t wanna, but I’ll always listen. You should know that by now.”

Souji keeps his eyes on at the fabric in his hands as he speaks. “It’s not something  _ you _ want to talk about.”

“What? You don’t know that.” He rolls back over to his desk, arm slung around the back of his chair. “Considering there’s only a few things that could be, if one of them’s bothering you, then yeah, I wanna talk about it.”

It feels like a long while that he stays quiet, the words taking their time, tripping over themselves before arranging into sentences that he can formulate. “I still get worried about it sometimes. Everything with Adachi.”

“That’s a hell of a big chunk to worry about.”

“I suppose so,” Souji chuckles. “It’s hard to find the differences between us, if I look for too long. That’s what I’m worried about.”

Kanji draws in a long breath through his nose, and he scoots his chair closer to him using his heels. “You’re nothing like that creep. I don’t know what similarities you’re perceiving here, but I don’t see any of them.”

“Same Persona,” Souji says, “for one.”

He doesn’t really have an answer for that. All of their teammates noticed, but there was some sort of unspoken agreement to not discuss it after the fight. Thankfully, he continues speaking before he can try to provide a response.

“I can’t think of a good reason that we were both granted the power to go into the TV. Izanami had to have had a purpose behind choosing who she did, and I can speculate from what she said, but there’s no way to know for sure.”

“You’re forgetting Namatame. I think you’re trying to shove an answer where there isn’t one, Senpai,” he frowns. “It wasn’t just the three of you, right? Like, she’s granted that power to people in the past. It’s random. You just happened to be who she chose.”

“But why? Why now, of all times?”

“Why do you want an answer?” The words come out gruffer than he intended, and he inwardly cringes, though Souji doesn’t seem fazed. He’s never quite sure how to navigate situations like these; he almost wants to take the guy’s hand, but his own suddenly feel clammy. So he tries again, a little quieter. “What difference does it make?”

“...None. Knowing versus not knowing, I suppose. It’d feel like I had some inkling of control over it.”

That much he can understand. Kanji casts his eyes to the side while he searches for how to phrase his thoughts. “Maybe it was like… The good, the bad, and the ugly. She saw something in each of you more than in your usual joe.”

And he can see the gears in Souji’s head turning far more than he cares for, so he hastily follows it up with, “Something different for all three. Like, I dunno, maybe she could see your determination. Or hope or love or some shit. After seeing Adachi’s — hell, both of their Shadows, that’s not you.”

“Sometimes I feel like Adachi  _ was _ my Shadow.”

Well. He’s caught in left field with that one. Souji’s lips quirk up at his flat “huh,” and he meets his eyes again. 

“Sorry, I know how that sounds.”

“Why would you think that?”

“Partially because he wasn’t granted a second form. His Shadow was simply himself, and he never turned into anything else. He didn’t even merge with other shadows like Namatame did.” 

Kanji frowns, his brow furrowed. “I thought that was just ‘cause he was a monster in and out of himself.”

“Maybe so,” Souji says, and he turns back to his desk, lining up the fabric to sew another seam. “It’s a nicer thought than lacking a sense of self so entirely that no Shadow could form.”

And then he’s about to argue that, say that Izanami’s power going directly to him blocked a Shadow, but he thinks of Adachi and Namatame and how even though they weren’t  _ separate _ entities, they undoubtedly turned into their own Shadows, had that marked shift in eyes and voice. Instead, he says, “I think we know ourselves a hell of a lot better than we think. If you know yourself entirely — or don’t have anything you’re hiding from yourself — then there’s no use in a Shadow. A Persona comes from the ego, or whatever that shit Naoto said to Teddie was.”

He still doesn’t look convinced, and rather looks like he’s regretting saying anything at all, so Kanji says his name.

Which grabs his attention considerably more than “Senpai.”

“You can’t force this stuff. I’m not gonna pretend like I know what’s in your head, but I at least know you, and you always figure shit out sooner or later.” 

“...As long as I have you guys with me,” Souji says after a long pause, a ghost of a smile on his face. 

“Course you do! We’re ride or die, man, like it or not!”

That garners a laugh from him, and the tension in the room falls. “Of course I do.”

“Hell yeah.” He grabs his wrist as Souji goes to drop the presser foot, stopping him before he can get going again. “That’s gotta be boring. You wanna help me with this frog?”

Though his smile is reserved, the light in his eyes tells him  _ hell  _ yes, he wants to make a frog. “What do I do?”

Kanji finds the torso and hind left leg on his desk and fumbles for his pins. “I’ll pin it together, you just follow the edge with a quarter inch seam. Uh —” he points to one of the lines on Souji’s machine, “this one. Don’t sew over my pins, though. You gotta pull them out before the needle hits ‘em.”

“And if I don’t?”

“If you don’t,” he grunts around a pin between his teeth, “you’ll face Ma.”

He’s mostly joking, but it’s enough to strike fear into Souji’s heart, and he gives a serious nod.

“No casualties.”


End file.
